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Sarah Raven

There are many life changes that come with having a small baby in the house. Some big (disturbed sleep, general worry) and some small but unforeseen. I had not realised, back in those summer days of waddling around as if nothing was about to happen, that my cooking would be seriously disrupted by Harry’s arrival.

To begin with, he wouldn’t let me put him down for more than a few minutes at a time. I quickly discovered that it’s impossible to chop, stir, fry, roast or boil with a wriggling baby in your arms. For this reason, between September to about early December I think I lived on tea, toast and hummus. He’s now happy to hang out in his chair or play mat for some time, but each day is different: On Monday he’ll babble to himself for an hour….then on Tuesday he’s having none of it and wants entertaining NOW Mummy!

So I’ve learnt to cook in short, sharp intervals. Anything that involves short periods of intervention or preparation work well – from the freezer pies that I can heat up after bedtime, to the quickly rustled-together poached egg on toast (there is still a general toast theme).

In recent weeks I’ve discovered that it’s possible to do bigger kitchen projects, provided that they need plenty of hands-off time. Last month’s marmalade is a good example, and this weekend I had a go at a blueberry couronne – a sweetened dough stuffed with cinnamon butter and blueberries, twisted and baked to gooey goodness. In total it took about 5 hours to make, but each intervention (making the dough, kneading, twisting) was less than 10 minutes. Perfect baby-friendly food.

Blueberry couronne

I used my recipe for apple buns, substituting the apples for blueberries and mixed spice for cinnamon. But instead of making buns, I baked the dough as per the recipe for chocolate couronne. Perfect for weekend brunching with the newspapers.

Perfect for weekend breakfasting

I don’t know if I can take the same approach with allotmenting…the challenges of gardening-with-baby remain unknown! But I did find an hour yesterday to sow the first seeds of the year, whilst the boys watched the Six Nations on the telly. Broadbeans, sweet peas and cleomes are now buried in their compost cocoons, ready for the strengthening spring sun to encourage them to life.

First seed planting of the year: sweet peas, broad beans, cleome

I now have the taste for planting but I must remember my plan to not do too much this year…no stress…no unnecessary hassle. It’s difficult not to get carried away with seeds; why plant 4 if you can plant 12? And before I know it, the allotment will be a jungle again!

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My life has been consumed with creating the brochure for Birmingham Weekender. At this point in time I genuinely ask myself which is harder: delivering a major festival, or delivering a baby. I suspect the baby will win but at least labour is over within a day or two…. Brochure creation for festivals goes on for WEEKS, requires significant skills in diplomacy and organisation (there’s A LOT of people involved with festivals), and a level of attention to detail that provokes 3am wakefulness and a several-day-long headache (though this might all be good practice for the life-changes ahead). Every summer, without fail, I ask myself why on earth I work on festivals…and then the event happens, everyone has a great time, and the pain is forgotten. Incidentally, anyone spotting the typo on this sample page gets a proofing high-five from me.

This has taken over my life but the end is in sight

Brochure is booked onto the presses Monday morning, after which I fully intend to get a bit more balance in my life. In the last week or two there’s been some rain (hurray!) and the allotment is actually perking up! The cornflowers and borage are beautiful, attracting a hum of bees, and we have the first zinnia and sunflowers.

The cornflowers and borage attract a constant hum of bees

Sunflowers are finally perking up

It’s the start of the courgette glut season so there’s several of these every visit, plus tubs of blueberries and enough greens now to keep us going.

Despite my winging there are pickings!

This is what happens when you plant courgettes too close together

I do need to eat some humble pie however. Every year my parents manage to grow some insane courgettes, at least a foot long, and every year I mock: “How do you let this happen?!”. Well. Work is preventing me from doing a daily courgette check and the result is this: veg as long as my foot, and pattypan bigger than my hand. This is not ideal: courgettes need to be small, in my view, about the length of my palm (and I have small hands). The big ones quickly turn mushy and are nowhere near as good.

Courgettes on the left are a perfect size; courgettes in the middle are what happens when you ignore them for 48 hours! Plus a few patty-pan with the same issue

Thankfully the Greeks have a solution to the insane-courgette-glut: PIE. When I mentioned to Matt that I planned to make a courgette-based pastry he screwed up his nose and winged that he didn’t want to eat anything vegan. Fear not. This pie involves eggs, cream, cheese, butter…all the greats. It’s a bit like spanakopita, but made with slow-cooked courgettes rather than spinach, and it manages to be fresh and rich all at the same time. Eat is warm for dinner with a tomato salad and then have the leftovers cold during the week. They’re clever, the Greeks.

Greek courgette pie

Greek Courgette Pie

From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook

First, take a kilo of courgettes, grate them into a big bowl, add a good pinch of salt and leave them to sit for an hour or so. This helps get rid of excess moisture. Tip the courgettes into a colander and give them a good squeeze until they’re as dry as you can get them.

Meanwhile, chop an onion and fry gently in a little olive oil until soft. Tip the courgettes into a pan and cook for about 15 minutes until soft and the excess liquid has evaporated. Tip the veg into a bowl and leave to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, chop a small bunch of parsley, a small bunch of dill, a small handful of mint leaves and 3 spring onions, and add to the courgettes. In a separate bowl, whisk 3 eggs with 100ml double cream, and add to the courgettes. Crumble in 200g feta cheese. Season with pepper and a little salt, and stir gently to combine.

Now it’s time to make the pie! Melt about 100g butter and have ready a pack of filo pastry. Preheat the oven to 190c, and line asmall roasting traywith foil and baking parchment, to make the pie easy to remove when it’s cooked.

To assemble the pie, lay a sheet of filo into the lined roasting tray, brush with butter, then top with another sheet of filo. Keep going until you have 4 layers of filo.

Gently tip the courgette mixture into the middle of the pastry and spread out slightly, leaving a good margin of pastry around the edges. Fold the edges of the pastry up over the courgettes.

Now top the courgettes with another 3 or 4 layers of filo, brushing each layer with butter as you go. Top the pie with another layer of butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake for about 25 minutes – it may need longer. It’s done with the pie feels firm and is golden brown. Leave to cool for about 30 minutes before eating.

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At various intervals between April and July that Christmas song ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ comes into my mind. From mid-spring to mid-summer, every few weeks a new miraculous thing happens that gives me zest for life….a hillside filled with bluebells in May, a meadow of wildflowers in June, and in April, the first bunches of precious green Evesham asparagus. I came across this brilliant sight on Saturday. The ‘grass is about three weeks early this year – there’s a chance this lot have been grown under plastic but I’m putting that to the back of my mind. What matters is that they were green, squeaky fresh and sweet.

First Evesham asparagus!

The first asparagus of the season is not to be messed about with. It needs about three or four minutes in boiling water and then anointing with butter, sea salt and black pepper, and no more. I served these up with my favourite spring supper: a whole trout baked with vine tomatoes, shallots, olives and thyme, with a side of new potatoes. And with that simple meal, the winter has gone.

It’s not just the asparagus that’s early. On my last visit to the allotment, about a fortnight ago, the tulips were still thinking about making their presence known. I’d been thinking for a few days that I ought to go and check progress so I popped over there yesterday evening to find, if not a field, then a substantial amount of full-blooms ready for picking.

I was taken by surprise as how far these have come along in a fortnight

I say ‘ready for picking’ – really, I should have started a week ago. The curious thing about tulips is that they need to be planted in colour blocks. On the allotment, in small strips of colour spaced quite far apart for ease of picking, they looked fun but nothing sensational. But an hour later, when separated out in vases in complimentary colours, they were brilliant.

Shades of cream, yellow, orange and burgundy

I collected an armful of tulips…

My current favourite is the combination of Purissima (the big fat cream one) and Moonlight girl (the pointy yellow one). Purissima is HUGE, which on the allotment looked ungainly, but in the vase looks wonderfully showy-offy. After the sparse months of winter, it’s uplifting to have some colour back in the house.

…and they look a treat

My only concern now is that we miss the rest of the crop. In a few weeks we’re off to Holland in order to admire that great tulip gardens of Amsterdam. Oh the irony if I then miss my own…

Also on the allotment and in the potting-room:

Harvesting: Tulips, last Russian kaleSowed: Chillies, chard, spinach, sorrel, cima di rapa, courgette, squash, pattypan, borlotti, string beans, runner beans, French beans, ammi, cosmos, cornflower, nasturtium, borage, poppy, zinnia, dill, rudbeckia, bells of IrelandOther jobs: Strimmed allotment grass for the first time this year. It is making vast in-roads into the veg patches and needs controlling. Dug up the last brassicas and forked over the patch. It took 90 minutes and today I can barely move; our soil needs alot of work.

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I still can’t quite bring myself to be out on the allotment, though it’s not for lack of jobs that need doing. I’m painfully aware that the autumn-cropping raspberries need a good chopping back (not a difficult job, but a lengthy one) and I should be thinking about getting some goodness into the soil (read: spread some manure). But the key word here is thinking…there’s alot of thinking and not much doing.

So whilst the great outdoors is still chilly – there was hail today – I’m contenting myself to sorting out my seeds for spring planting, and wondering where all these tiny seedlings are going to live for the next few months. Because, dear reader, this year I have the grand total of 50 varieties of vegetables, salads, herbs and flowers that will soon need starting off!

The new batch of seeds for 2017 are here

There is reason behind this seed madness. My doctor has been telling me to take vitamins but surely to God that is why spinach was invented? And tomatoes, and sweetcorn, and kale, and chillies, and squash, and beans, and you get the picture. So rather than sink my hard-earned cash into the big pharma companies, I’m investing in my diet instead, and that’s where Seeds of Italy and Sarah Raven come in.

New discoveries for 2017 come courtesy of Seeds of Italy, who are offering this particularly fancy-looking pumpkin and my favourite UFO-shaped squash custard white. I’m also having a go at runner beans this year for the first time (notwithstanding the ongoing slug-wars) and a late-to-bolt spinach, Tuscane. Plus there will be the usual mix of kale, courgette, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes and chillies, though no beets this year – grown on our soil they only seem to taste of, well, soil. Ugh.

Two fun types of squash this year…

On the flower front, I’m bolstering my favourite white cosmos purity with a host of brightly-coloured newbies. There’s a carnival of colour with this zinnia mix, and I’m hoping that the cosmos bright lights mix will go well in a mixed bouquet with the sunflowers claret and valentine. I’ve also plumped for the delicate antique pink of cosmos antiquity and I’ll have another go at rudbeckia (last year the slugs ate the lot).

…and loads of bright annuals!

The issue now is where to put them all. When we lived in the flat, I used to balance seed-trays on our windowsills with the help of a few trusty paperbacks. This house, though bigger, has very few suitable windows and those we do have are prime hanging-out territory for the cat (I’ve learned that Gertrude and seed trays do not go together). SO I’ll have to make an interim potting shed in the ‘sun room’ and balance the trays on a few trestle tables pinched from Matt’s business. It’s a plan. Only thing now is to actually get the pots and compost together and get planting!

BIG UP: A final note to big up my Mum and Dad who braved the inclement weather on Saturday to plant a climbing rose in my back garden. This lovely plant was a gift from Matt’s Mum when we moved house last summer, but it’s taken several months for me to clear out three massive hydrangeas and prepare the parched soil so that it has a cosy place to live. I am, however, hopeless with a drill so my Dad finally arrived with his power-tools to put the wire supports in place. My Mum then trained the shoots into place. It rained. It wasn’t fun. They are troopers. Big up the parents and parents-in-law!

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Suddenly, there are apples everywhere. We visited Matt’s 90-something-year-old Grampy at the weekend and the first sight on entering the house was these stacked apple crates, plus a sign at the front door claiming apples for sale. I make a mental note to track down a recipe for the Dutch apple cake that I saw in Rotterdam back in May, generously crammed with fruit and topped with cinnamon-spiked crumble.

Grampy’s apples are literally piling up

Against all odds, the borlotti beans have come up with a bounteous harvest and I picked a carrier bag-full of marbled pods yesterday. The beans inside are big, around the size of a thumbnail, and milky creamy – I prefer them in this youthful state. Rather than dry them, I’ll pod these and stick the beans straight in the freezer, ready to be thrown into chillies and minestrone when needed. So much simpler than the usual palaver of soaking and boiling for a day.

First picking of borlotti beans

I’ve brought in the ornamental gourds too, in their stripy green and yellow jackets. They’re brightening up the fireplace with autumnal colour.

The trug of gourds

But the real job of the weekend was getting started on the bulb planting. A few weeks back I went a little crazy, possibly after imbibing a sherry or two, and ordered a massive number of tulips, narcissi and allium bulbs for autumn planting. The idea was to have a patch of spring cutting flowers on the allotment that could just sit there all year round, perhaps being over-planted with lettuce or suchlike once the flowers have died back.

The bulbs duly arrived (the postman warned me over the weight of the box and was incredulous then I said it was bulbs) and I realised that I may have slightly too many. 310 to be precise. Now I am not the best when it comes to spacial awareness, but there was no way that the designated patch was going to take all these…

A gazillion bulbs waiting to be planted

As the bulbs were going into one patch of clear earth, we simply dig out trenches and laid the bulbs out in grids. I say ‘we’: Matt did the graft whilst I supervised.

We (read: Matt) dug out an entire trench to make planting easier

I’ve planted in blocks, so that each colour stays together. There was only room for tulips in the end – the allium and narcissi will have to go into pots or into the garden at Herbert Road, which is no hardship. In went (all from Sarah Raven):

Purissima: a pale cream shade

The Dutch Still Life collection: Helmar, Jan Reus and Bruine Wimpel, a deep red flowers offset with a yellow/red fiery striped and a dusky orangey-pink

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The first allotment architecture of the 2016 has been raised! First the sweet pea poles went up, at which point we were on a roll and so the bean sticks were installed too. It’s a tricky thing, choosing where to put the sticks – we’re stuck with them now for a good 8 months – and they provide the height and structure for half the plot.

First garden architecture of 2016 is raised: bean and sweet pea poles

Meanwhile the hops are needing their own supports; this one has shot up a foot in the past week.

The hops are crying out for the hopolisk

The sorrel that I chopped down to the ground a few weeks ago have grown back with gusto! I love its lemony freshness and given that my lettuce seedlings are pathetic, this is a great salady perennial to have in the veg patch.

Sorrel ready for cropping

Matt came home from Tamworth on Sunday with a ‘small amount’ of rhubarb from his parent’s allotment – yup, it’s that time of year when we enter the rhubarb glut! Our rhubarb plant is still small but will be cropping well within a fortnight.

The first of the rhubarb glut

What to do with all this pretty pink fruit (and yes, I know that technically it’s a vegetable)? I’ve made two versions of this pudding-cake in the past week, once with frozen stems (rhubarb freezes particularly well) and once with fresh. It comes out with a pretty pink top but the caramel turns the sides of the cake treacly, which helps to offset that mouth-stripping acidity of rhubarb. This upside-down cake is now a permanent addition to my rhubarb repertoire.

Grease a 8-inch round non-stick springform or push-pan tin and place it on a baking tray to catch any drips. Preheat the oven to 180c.

First make the caramel rhubarb. In a large frying pan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, then tip in the rhubarb. If using frozen rhubarb, allow the fruit to sit in the caramel on a very low heat until defrosted, about 10 minutes. If using fresh rhubarb, allow it to cook in the caramel until just softened, about 5 minutes. Add the orange zest. Remove the rhubarb with a slotted spoon and place in a pretty pattern on the base of your cake tin. Bring the caramel to the boil and bubble until reduced and sticky, then tip over the rhubarb.

Now make the cake. Beat the butter and caster sugar until pale and light, then alternatively beat in the eggs and flour until well mixed. Add the baking powder and milk. You want a light, pale batter with a soft dropping consistency. Spread the batter over the top of the rhubarb and smooth the top.

Bake for about 50 minutes but keep an eye on the cake and cover with foil if it’s looking too brown. It’s ready when a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Leave the cake to rest in the tin for about 20 minutes and then turn out directly onto a plate. Sprinkle with the toasted almonds.

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A decade or so ago, had you wanted to learn how to make bread or understand the art of preserving, you’d have found a cookbook, followed the instructions and generally hoped for the best. No longer. Cooking courses are now two-a-penny as the likes of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Richard Bertinet teach us how to perfect our pastry and butcher a pig. Cooking has become a lifestyle choice, an aspirational escape from everyday life.

It’s taken a while for gardening to catch up but there are now a few individuals selling the horticultural lifestyle dream. Sarah Raven is chief amongst them, with her numerous books, bountiful Sussex garden…and courses about veg and flowers. And so last weekend we headed south to Perch Hill, Sarah Raven HQ, for a day learning about The New Organic Garden.

The course was devised and delivered by the Belgian plantsman Peter Bauwens, who is justly famous in his home country but isn’t known over here – he is unable to get an English language book deal, probably because he hasn’t been on telly. This is a nonsense because Peter knows all there is to know about the growing of veg, particularly veg that is vegan (more on that later), unusual, nutritious and a little bit fun. This course is well-timed because my recent veg-sowing session ended up looking like this…I need help.

Last week’s sowing efforts…it’s not easy to grow veg on a kitchen table with an inquisitive cat around

This was my second trip to Perch Hill and actually I was pleased to see that their beds, currently filled with tulips and over-wintered brassicas, looked quite achievable at home. They have planted bulbs everywhere, including with long-lasting vegetables such as asparagus, for year-round interest. In a week or so this garden will be vibrant with colour.

Perch Hill on a rainy April morning

So what is Peter Bauwen’s New Organic Garden? It seems to boil down to five things:

Aim for a year-round crop

Think of your veg as plants

Feed your plants well

Root disturbance is worth worrying about

Try new things

Let’s look at these in turn.

Year-round veggingI was really hoping this year for some early brassicas to get us through spring – cavolo nero, maybe a few leaves of kale, nothing special. In fairness to me I did try, but the pigeons and slugs had other ideas, so all we ended up with was a few sprigs of purple sprouting.

Peter encouraged us to persevere. The trick is to think of these plants as biennials, starting them now (March or April), sowing direct to the garden because they don’t like their roots being disturbed, protecting them well, and with any luck there will be a harvest the following spring. This outstanding crop of PSB has made me want to give the brassicas another go.

Peter Bauwens and a staggering crop of purple sprouting broccoli

The other trick is to use the greenhouse. This is so obvious I don’t quite know why I didn’t think of it before…silly me. Just look at these amazing salads and spinach, sown in the depths of winter and doing very well under glass in the early months of the year.

These salads in the Perch Hill greenhouse put my efforts to shame

Spinach Medania

Hardy mustard mix, lasting well into spring

I had some glorious baby salad leaves in my greenhouse and planted them out a few weeks ago, and now they look MISERABLE. They should have stayed where they were.

Think of vegetables as plantsWell of course vegetables are plants, aren’t they? What Peter means is to stop focusing entirely on the end product. Say you sow a tray of cauliflower. When the tray needs thinning, these tiny seedlings are your first crop. Then they get planted out and the leftover plants are a second crop. As the plants get bigger you can make a stir-fry from the outer leaves. You may then get a full-size cauliflower, so slice off the curds but leave the plant where it is. In a few weeks time, there will be more baby cauliflower stems, for another crop. And on and on.

Apparently if you harvest a leek by slicing, leaving the roots in the ground, it will grow a tasty leek-flavoured shoot – a second crop. We all know that broad bean tops are great sautéed with garlic, but if you cut the plant back to the ground and allow it to regrow, you’ll get a crop of new leaves and shoots for another meal. Rocket and radishes that have bolted should be left where they are, for the flowers are edible, as are the seeds.

And on it goes. I love this idea and will be slicing some leeks forthwith.

Feed your plants wellThis is where the vegan thing comes in. Apparently vegan fertilisers are a big deal on the continent right now and I suppose it make sense – if you are planning to eat your lettuce raw, and you’re a veggie, it’s nice to know that it hasn’t had horse poo or fish blood sprayed on it. Peter brought out a load of interesting vegan fertilisers that he mixes into his compost, from raw cacao to sugar cane and alfalfa hay.

Vegan fertilisers, including alfalfa, cacao and sugar cane

He is a sensible man though and grants that it’s hard for everyday gardeners to get hold of this stuff, in which case, stick to the manure. His other tip was to mix your potting compost well – he makes his own compost, lightens it with coconut fibre and sand and aerates it with a sieve.

Home-made compost lightened with coconut fibre

It did feel lovely stuff…but as long as I am doing my gardening on the kitchen table with a nosey cat alongside, this level of attention to detail will have to wait.

Some plants hate root disturbanceThis is one of those annoying things that you only learn by messing it up a few times. Some plants loathe having their roots disturbed, whilst others couldn’t give a monkeys. Peter advises sowing all brassica-type plants directly (chard, spinach, kale, broccoli) so you don’t have to transplant them. Other plants can go into fibrous pots which allow the roots to grow through them once they are planted out. Incidentally, Peter pots on his seedlings much deeper than I do, up to the first leaves on this tomato.

Tomato plant in a fibrous pot…it’s loads shorter and planted much deeper than the ones back in my greenhouse

At Sarah Raven they get around the root disturbance issue by sowing salads into gutters in the greenhouse, then sliding the lot into the veg patch when they’re big enough. I’ll definitely be giving this a go.

Plants are sown into gutters to limit root disturbance

Try new thingsPeter went to art school in his youth and has an appreciation of beauty in plant form. His books and seed packets are photographed so well that I wanted to applaud – British seed companies have a lot to learn on this front.

His nursery advocates lots of unusual, nutritious and good-looking vegetables, including quinoa, edamame beans, white strawberries (apparently the birds won’t eat these), pink potatoes and blush-coloured currants. Beetroots with long roots have better flavour than those with round roots, so it’s worth hunting out a few different varieties. Japanese greens and radish are good winter veg – sow them in autumn. Oh! And you can sow courgettes in July for a second autumn crop, so I might try that out.

In the spirit of trying new things, I picked up a packet of ‘Seeds of Hex’, a kale variety where you can eat both the leaves and the flower heads.

Frills of Hex, an unusual kale variety from Belgium

Other tips I picked up on the day from my fellow students are that beer traps for slug do work, but you have to use very cheap beer (because it’s sugary) and it’s worth adding a pinch of yeast to the booze to get it frothing.

Peter finished by telling us that food plants are like a paradise to be shared with others, a suitably poetic end to the day.

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A few years ago my parents had a bumper crop of crab apples and my Mum turned the knobbly, gnarly fruits into a beautiful pale pink jelly. Not the children’s party sort, but the kind that you have with cheese or use to rescue a gravy. She’s good at preserves, my Mum; I like to think that she was trained by my Nan, but I don’t actually know if that’s the case.

Despite years of practice as a kid, my jams, chutneys and marmalades are usually terrible, more akin to polyfilla than anything else. But I feel it a case of domestic pride, a nod to my feminine heritage, to never give up. Also, I bought a sugar thermometer, which changed everything. (No more messing around with wrinkle-tests and saucers in the freezer!) So I made a batch of sloe apple jelly and you know what, it’s pretty darn good!

This is a beautiful, jewel-coloured concoction, its sweetness masked by the ripe tannins of sloes. It’s a bit like a set sloe-gin. You could have it as it is, with cheese, use as a glaze for lamb or game, or to add sweetness to a stew or sauce.

This jelly strainer kit usually lives under the stairs at Grove House (my parent’s house) and despite using it regularly for my 35 years, it still takes ages to successfully put it together. I got there in the end.

The jelly strainer isn’t very sturdy, but has exciting geometric lines

Complete with jelly bag and bowl

The other essential bit of kit is a preserving pan. Ours – another sturdy 1970s heirloom – has a really wide base, which makes for a large surface area and helps the mixture to reduce and get to temperature quickly. Whatever you have, use the biggest pan possible – hot sugary liquid expands in volume and you don’t want it boiling over.

Sloe apple jelly needs sloes and apples. These sloes were picked from Castlemorton Common back in August and have been hanging out in the freezer since. The apples are bramleys, roughly chopped but with the pips and skins left in – that’s where the pectin is, and pectin is what will set our jelly.

Sloes, picked in August and frozen

Chopped bramleys (keep the pips and skin)

In separate pans, cook each fruit with just enough water to cover, until soft – about 10 minutes.

Simmer the sloes and apples separately

Now for some fun. Each mixture has to go through the jelly bag separately: for our contraption, this means ladling the cooked fruit into the bag one spoonful at a time, hoping that the whole thing doesn’t collapse and flood the kitchen with sticky purple juice. Just let the juices strain through the bag at its own rate – don’t be tempted to squeeze or push it through, else you’ll get a cloudy jelly.

Strain the juices separately, using aforementioned jelly bag

Strained sloe juice

Strained apple juice

Now take equal quantities of the sloe and apple juice, and slosh them into the preserving pan.

Measure equal quantities of each juice into the preserving pan

There’s one more ingredient to go: sugar. We need 450g sugar for every 570ml of juice. All preserving recipes say to gently warm the sugar in the oven before using; I don’t really understand why we do this, but everyone says we must, so who am I to argue. Add your measured warm sugar to the waiting juices.

Sorry sugar police: to make jelly, you’ll need a bag or two of this

Gently heat the mixture to melt the sugar, then bring to a boil. A sugar thermometer helps here – boil until the mixture reaches 105 degrees celcius, which takes about 20 minutes. There will be lots of impurities that rise to the top – remove them with a slotted spoon.

Bring the mixture to the boil, skimming off impurities as you. It needs to get to 105 degrees celcius.

Once the jelly has come to temperature, allow it to sit for five minutes to cool slightly, then decant into your waiting jars. Cover with waxed paper and a lid, then leave to cool completely.

Pour into prepared jars and leave to set

This is a loose-set jelly, which I prefer as it feels fresh and more contemporary than the super-solid jellies of old. It’s a glorious colour, but has a really grown up flavour – those tight tannins from the sloes stop the jelly from edging over to sickliness. It’s a good addition to the autumn preserving repertoire.

Wash and sterilise the jam jars. Warm the sugar packets in a very low oven for 30 minutes or so. Get the jelly straining bag ready.

Chop the apples, keeping the pips and skins, and cook with enough water to just cover until soft. Separately, cook the sloes with enough water to cover until the skins burst. Put each fruit through the jelly bag separately.

Measure equal quantities of apple and sloe juice and put into a preserving pan. Add 450g of the warmed sugar for every 570ml juice. Stir on a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil and cook until the mixture reaches 105c. Remove any impurities with a slotted spoon.

Once it’s at temperature, leave to stand for five minutes then decant into the prepared jam jars. Cover and seal. Keeps well for several months.

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Confession: I have a girl crush. I’ve been ruthlessly marketed to and have fallen like a sucker. In short, I’ve been got by Sarah Raven.

If you’re not aware of Sarah Raven, she’s a writer, broadcaster and gardener who also has a very successful business selling seeds, plants, cookery and gardening classes and a certain kind of lifestyle.

My family do not understand this crush. It’s because they don’t tick the demographic boxes: my Mum’s too good at gardening to fall for all the pretty pictures in the seed catalogue, and the men are, well, men. As someone who works in marketing, I am woefully aware that I’m falling for a clever branding exercise…but nonetheless I’m willing to be seduced.

So we went to Kent to poke around Perch Hill, the public face of Sarah Raven, and whilst there also took a look at those classic gardens, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter.

The concept behind Perch Hill makes a huge amount of sense to me. The point is this: grow flowers for cutting (TICK!). Grow veg for eating (TICK!). Grow the two together so that your garden is pretty (TICK!). Cook what you grow (TICK! TICK! TICK!). Grow stuff all year round so there’s always something to eat (I’m still working on that bit).

Perch Hill is made up of lots of smaller garden rooms, devoted to flowers, veg, herbs and so on. I’ve come away with several ideas for next year’s allotmenting.

The cutting garden is framed by rusted arches

A classic view of Kent with oast house, tiling and wood

Grasses break up the flowers in the cutting garden

First idea to pinch: bright sweet peas were grown against firm meshing. On the allotments a lot of people use flimsy net reclaimed from building sites, but this looks smarter and more able to survive a few years of Brummie weather.

Idea to steal: The cosmos and other tall flowers are grown through mesh to stop them flopping over

In the cutting garden, flowers are grown in blocks through supportive string frameworks. This dahlia caught my eye, a vivid lurid orange.

Dahlias are out in Kent. This one is called Happy Halloween.

Idea to steal: Dahlias are grown in blocks through string support. I think this is easier to do than a lot of individual staking.

I have a lot of white flowers this year, which frame the purple lavender, nigella and sweet peas well. Next year I’d like more bright colours, possibly including this extravagant cosmos.

I am PINK and PROUD

Agapanthus give shots of blue colour

Drifts of lavender line the paths

Over to the veg. There were still baby courgette plants pushing through the soil, and masses of kale and brassicas. Plus a few surprises including quinoa, which I’ve never seen in plant-form before.

To the veg: we’re growing this variety of onion, but there’s still a way to go before ours get this big

Cavalo nero envy. Mine are still seedlings, the first sowing have been scoffed by the slug

This is quinoa! It’s a long flower spike. Who knew?

There’s also a massive greenhouse and converted barn, home to the cookery school and shop. The antiqued vases gave me a mental note to take a look in charity shops for old glass at a fraction of the price.

Like this:

I spent a good hour on Sunday processing soft fruit. I don’t mean putting it through the food processor… I mean topping and tailing gooseberries and blackcurrants to make them freezer ready. Yesterday at the allotment, my neighbour left with a crate (a crate!) filled to the brim with goosegogs. That’s a lot of crumble.

In truth our fruit harvest is down this year on last and I’m uncertain why. Perhaps the bushes need a good prune, or maybe I didn’t net properly and the birds had them. But still, on Sunday the bushes gave up about 1 kilo of blackcurrants, and there’s still more to come.

I’ve had my eye on Sarah Raven’s cassis recipe for quite a while. It’s very simple: in old money, for every pint of brandy, add 1lb each sugar and blackcurrants, plus a few blackcurrant leaves for flavour. Leave to stew for a few weeks before straining. Cassis is great for making cheap white wine (in particular, fizz) into something drinkable: the French call this a Kir, or if you’re using fizz, a Kir Royale. I’ll give the verdict in the autumn.

Cassis in the making

But the best, the absolute BEST, thing to do with blackcurrants is to turn them into ice-cream. And I mean ice-cream is the purest sense; that is, cream that is flavoured and frozen. Most ice-creams have a custard base which can be a bit of a faff. This one is as simple as can be.

Firstly, get yourself some cream. Incidentally, I’ve never weighed or measured anything when making this ice-cream, just going with what I have. Each time it’s worked out yummy. But that’s no help to you so I’d allow about 450ml double cream.

Take some cream…

Then you’ll need some blackcurrants. I took about 500g of fruit and cooked it down with a little sugar and water until the fruit burst. It tasted sweet but not too sweet. It was then pushed through a sieve and chilled to make a thick glossy smooth puree.

…and some cooked and sieved blackcurrants…

Then you just mix it all together! Whip the cream until it’s just thickened and then fold in the blackcurrants. Don’t over-whip as that will mess up the texture; it needs to be smooth and dollop-y. Give it a taste: it should be slightly too strong and sweet, as the freezer will dull the flavour. If in doubt, add a little icing sugar to the mix.

Whip them together…

Then pop the lot into your ice-cream maker and churn until frozen. Or frozen-ish. I always make too much and so it stays very soft-set. No matter, as it hardens up just fine in the freezer.

…and churn

Pop the lot into a tub and freeze until firm. This ice-cream retains a lovely texture that really is akin to a custard-base ice. I can only imagine that the blackcurrants, with all their pectin, have something to do with this. If it’s too hard to scoop, just leave the ice-cream out of the freezer for 20 minutes or so before serving.

Purple blackcurrant ice

If you, like me, pick far too many blackcurrants at this time of year to eat, then you can always make up the fruit puree and freeze for future ice-cream making forays. I’ve made this with both sieved and chunky puree, and I think sieved gives a better texture.

Be warned: this is fruit and cream and sugar. It’s rich and a little goes a long way. But my God, it’s good!

Blackcurrant ice-cream

Recipe half-remembered from a National Trust cookbook from many moons ago. You’ll need an ice-cream maker.

About 500g blackcurrants

Granulated sugar, to taste

About 450ml double cream

Icing sugar, to taste

First make your puree. Remove any big stems or leaves from the currants. Put them in a pan and cook on a gentle heat with a splash of water and a few spoons of granulated sugar until the fruit bursts. Taste it: it should be sweet but retain a bit of sharpness. Push through a sieve and chill.

Whip the cream until very soft peaks form. Fold the fruit into the cream, tasting as you go until the right balance is achieved. Add icing sugar if you need to. It should taste a bit too strong and a bit too sweet. Churn until frozen, then put in the freezer to harden up.